or development goal in relation to armed-violence. Most proposals in this category simply push for current interventions to achieve the MDGs to incorporate conflict analysis and to ‘be harmonsied with other security imperatives’ (Fukuda-Parr and Picciotto 2007: 10). This means that conflict-sensitivity approaches are more about interventions to achieve the goals, rather than about the goals themselves. Other than building incentives into the post-2015 framework for countries to ensure that strategies to achieve the new goals are conflict-sensitive, it seems that this approach is more about how countries implement the new framework once it’s been agreed, rather than about the development of the new framework itself.
Humphreys and Varshney (2004: 34) explain how such a conflict-sensitive approach to the MDGs could be operationalized:
Even if not aimed directly at conflict prevention or resolution, project managers need to be trained to be aware of the implications of their projects on fighting factions, politicised communities and the dynamics of conflicts in their areas and to report these effects as part of standard reporting on project implementation. For this, development agencies need to increase the numbers of their personnel with direct knowledge and experience of conflict zones. Recently conflict analysis and assessment tools for development project managers have been developed for exactly these purposes. A reasonable expectation is that all development projects receiving international funding but operating in conflict zones should be required to file regular peace and conflict impact assessments.
Some see the conflict-sensitive approach as requiring more rigorous application, involving ‘behavioural indicators that reveal whether the implementation of the MDG strategies is contributing to violent conflict’ (Humphreys and Varshney 2004: 25). If this more rigorous approach were adopted, it would still not require new areas of programming, so much as additional skills to support existing areas of programming.